The 28,000-square-metre plant is being built in the Jiading Hydrogen Park, within the municipality of Shanghai.

MAN has now built a prototype vehicle, with sensors on the roof and sides of the cab. The vehicle has already successfully covered its first kilometres at MAN's Munich test site and was due to undergo real road testing before the end of 2023.

Starting in Germany, Hemtron will build a hydrogen fuel network on new greenfield sites and at third-party stations, concentrating on locations near logistics centres and motorways. 

A startup cannot live on ideas alone, no matter how good; it must be able to turn them into a viable business case if it is to remove its dependency on investor funds. That was the message of Jean-Claude Bailly, who took over the ailing French tech company Navya SA when it was saved from insolvency earlier this year by Gaussin and Macnica,1 during an interview with Truck & Bus Builder.

The joint venture, dubbed ‘Juna’, is based in Berlin and employs the digital freight-forwarding technology developed by Sennder.

Based in Brussels, the new joint venture, called 'Ionway', will be responsible for producing precursor and cathode active materials for lithium-ion batteries at scale.

The two companies have signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to make available locally-produced electric trucks in the Indonesian market under the NTBK brand.

Subject to regulatory approval, the joint venture will be launched in 2024, with both partners pledging to invest EUR300m each over the next three years.

The three million-square-foot site is set to be operational in the first half of 2026 with an estimated capacity of up to 45,000 tonnes of cathode active materials (CAM) per year supporting the production of up to 225,000 electric vehicles annually.

The JV aims to manufacture battery cells for commercial electric vehicles at a 21-gigawatt hour (GWh) factory that is anticipated to cost between USD 2-3 billion. The emphasis is on pioneering better battery chemistries that last longer, are safer, lower in cost and are more environmentally sustainable, preferably without the need for nickel and cobalt raw materials.

The joint venture, which will make use of Westport assets and intellectual property, will receive an initial USD28m investment from Volvo, giving it a 45% stake.

The joint venture, under the name ‘Roqit’, will develop a digital platform for the provision of various services, including management tools for fleets, insurance, hydrogen infrastructure, and emissions tracking, as well as data insights.